HALO – FALLOUT
By
D. L. Hemmingway
Author's Note: Attributions are in Chapter One
Chapter 2
REACH ORBIT 29 AUGUST 2552 UNSC ARCHANGLE MICHAEL
Nora Addams, Second Lieutenant, UNSC Marine Corps, Platoon Leader 3rd Platoon Company B 1-234 ODST Battalion awaited in her drop capsule for her platoon's drop in support of a team of Spartan – IIs on the surface of Reach. Her pre-drop briefing by her Company Commander stated that her platoon was providing overwatch for Noble Team along with other ODST platoons. She and her Platoon Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Jarome Wilson copied all the important information for their mission into their TACPADs, a hardened Tactical personal computing device that can be used to analyze tactical information and to relay commands and reports.
Now Nora awaited the launch countdown for her drop. Inside the DROP CAPSULE pod she heard the steady counting down of the seconds. "T minus Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven…" the rumbling of the opening of the Drop Bay Doors could be heard as well as felt, "Six… Five… Four…" she had done this before, but she felt nervous sweat roll down her face as the countdown continued, "Three… Two… One…" then suddenly it felt as if the world dropped out from under her as the capsule was shot out of the bay like a rocket along the rails of its magnetic induction catapult. The old double time marching and running cadence repeated itself through her thoughts as she felt the pod thrusted out of the UNSC ARCH ANGEL MICHAEL, "Hell Jumper, Hell Jumper Where You Been…" As this was a combat drop the ODSTs were being dropped under opposing fire.
The UNSC ARCH ANGEL MICHAEL was providing not only covering fire for the drop, but also defensive fires to protect it. As one of his Sheva missiles successfully hit a Covenant destroyer below it in orbit and that ship's reactor and engines went critical a rift in time and space opened. Most of 3rd Platoon's pods missed the rift, but 2LT Addams' shot right into it. Nora didn't even notice this event as her window didn't provide her with a view of what was below her and the CCTV feed of her pod's external cameras was compromised by all the exploding ship to ship ordnance and the EMP effects of the plasma bolts and nuclear warheads.
EARTH MASSACHUSETTS ARMY NATIONAL GUARD TRAINING CENTER 29 AUGUST 2068
"War. War never changes." Nathaniel Addams 23 October 2077
Sergeant Nathaniel Addams was putting his team of his squad of his platoon of Company D Second Battalion 108th Infantry Massachusetts Army National Guard of the United States Army pre-mobilization drills. In two weeks, they were slated to transfer to Fort Hagen to begin pre-deployment training. After which they transfer to Fort Irwin in southern California for final training before taking part in the liberation of Alaska. He was ordering his men through a combat simulation lane at the Mass. ARNG Training Center's MOUT Site.
As Bravo Team Third Squad Second Platoon Company D 2/ 108 INF REG MA ARNG was navigating through the maze of face houses and businesses that comprised the Potemkin Village that was the MOUT Site everyone was suddenly knocked off their feet by a sudden thud that vibrated through the ground. As he was falling onto his ass Nate swore, he saw what resembled a large caliber artillery shell impact in the asphalt street ahead of him on his right down the alley the team was currently in. The impact of the shell into the ground sounded like an explosion, but no shrapnel spread out from it.
Getting to his feet he rushed over along with the rest of his team as a hatch popped of an fell to the ground. Aiming his latest variant of the venerable M-4 carbine he covered a private who was the youngest member of his team as the young woman peered into the hollow chamber of the shell. "Smith, what do you see?" he asked of her as she looked back at him.
"I see a female in some kind of Combat Armor, Sergeant," PVT Smith, "Sergeant we'd best get a medic over here. I don't think she took the landing very well!" Then Smith called out, "MEDIC!" Nate immediately called over his tactical handy talkie for a Medic and an ambulance. An ambulance version of the latest 6 wheeled drive APC rolled up and a team of medics hopped out and began to extricate the individual from the pod. Nate helped the medics unstrap the unconscious woman from her combat armor. The helmet was a full facial unit that seemed to also be environmentally sealed as was the rest of the suit. It wasn't powered but articulated with some kind of ballistic cloth combined with some kind of chemical and perhaps radiological protection at the joints including shoulders, elbows, the neck, the waist, the hips, knees, ankles, and the metatarsal area of the foot. The woman's gloves were also articulated and provided protection from ballistic damage, and from chemical and radiological damage.
As the medics and Nate took of her armor so the Medics could better assess her condition, Nate put each piece to one side and Specialist David Watson his assistant team leader and grenadier tagged them. From her left vambrace of her left arm armor he detached a small personal computing device sort of like a compact RobCo PIP Boy. Afterwards his team acted as security as the armor and the woman's weapons were stored in the Armory Bunker as the woman herself was taken to the facilities infirmary before being transferred to the base hospital at Fort Hagen on the other side of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
13 JANUARY 2077 SANCTUARY HILLS SUBURB CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS
Nora Addams, now married to Sergeant First Class, Retired MA ARNG, and eight months pregnant with their first child looked out the living room window of their house on Sanctuary Hills Road, the only street in the Concord suburb that was their new home. Nate was out of the National Guard and the Army due to a medical retirement because of a head concussion received towards the end of March of 2076 while both were deployed in the Reclamation of Anchorage, Alaska.
Nora former Second Lieutenant UNSC Marine Corps, cross-time castaway and now a Captain in the MA ARNG JAG (Judge Advocate's General Corps) was on maternity leave from both her position with one of Boston's premier law firms, but also the Army National Guard. In the years since her misjump into this timeline she received a commission in the Massachusetts Army National Guard, worked on a Pre-Law Degree, completed service in the Liberation of Alaska, obtained a Juris Doctorate and became a member not only of the Massachusetts Bar, but a JAG Officer in the MA ARNG's 26th Armored Brigade Combat Team formerly until the Sino-American War the 26th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade. The current formation consisted of two armor heavy combined arms battalions, a mechanized heavy combined arms battalion, an armored cavalry troop, a signals company, and a Brigade Support Battalion. She was assigned as Deputy JAG Officer at the Headquarters – Headquarters Company of the 26 ABCT.
Now though she is enjoying the peace and quiet of her home in her new life. She still wondered how the Siege of Reach played out, but she's adapted to this world. The nice thing is when she married Nate, she didn't have to change her surname. It seems though they were descended from the opposite brothers of the famous colonial family. Nora counted as her many times over great grandfather Samuel Addams the third and fourth Governor of Massachusetts, President of the Massachusetts Senate, Delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress and Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Nate though was a many times great grandson of John Addams. John Addams had been Second Cousin to Samuel Addams, a Delegate from Massachusetts to the Second Continental Congress, 12 Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, Chairman of the Marine Committee, United States Envoy to France, 1st United States Minister to the Netherlands, 1st United States Minister to Great Britain, 1st Vice President of the United States, and the 2nd President of the United States. Since his honorable discharge and retirement from the Army and the Massachusetts Army National Guard Nathaniel had been working on a teaching certificate and a Bachelor of Arts in History, concentrating on American especially American Colonial History. He also became a leader within the local Veterans' Lodge.
SATURDAY 23 OCTOBER 2077 ADDAMS HOUSE SANCTUARY HILLS, MASSACHUSETTS
Nate was finishing up his morning shave as he recited his speech for this evening's Veteran's Event. He was a Keynote Speaker and wanted to address his concerns about the possibility of the tensions between the People's Republic of China and the United States of America getting dangerously close to Nuclear War. Nora stood leaning against the door frame of the bathroom and said, "You're gonna knock 'em dead at the Veteran's Hall tonight, hon."
Nate looked up at her reflection in the mirror and said, "You think?" He notices Nora's already dressed in one of her casual outfits when just a short time before they had showered together. He smirked a bit at the though of her next to him in their shower. Then he decided to put that thought away for now and keep to the business of getting ready for the rest of their day. Still for someone who fell through the barriers between timelines Nora was one of the hottest bodies around and one of the scariest women he knew when it came to fighting. A woman with her body type was wiry, lithe, and graceful. He'd seen her take out a couple of muggers down near the much reduced Boston Common's Park and not break a nail or even breakout in sweat. She wasted no movements. She was one scary lawyer.
Nora smiles at him and moves forward towards him, "Now get ready and stop hogging the mirror." Nora moves in and nudges Nate away from the lavatory and mirror. As she steps onto the scale build into the base of the lavatory, she notices Nates emergency medical kit on the floor next to the sink's pedestal. Then she checks her looks in the mirror using her brush to do minor adjustments to her hairstyle. Then she turns to leave the bathroom. Nate walks back up to the mirror.
After she left the bathroom Nora went to check on Shaun their son and his twin Shawn their daughter. It was a surprise to both her and Nate that she was bearing twins. Though she thought it over and remembered that in her original timeline her family had several sets of twins both fraternal and identical in its history. While Nate had been busy shaving, she had dressed in a pair of skinny dress casual pants over a black spaghetti strapped bodysuit. Then she put on a light blue button down long sleeved women's shirt over that. Her pants were a coyote brown color, well sort of a dark khaki.
In the Twin's bedroom she looked down at Shaun and Shawn. She looked at the items scattered around the room before she went over to look over her babies and play with them a little. On a flower shaped cotton throw rug, a teddy bear was laying face up. "Oh, how'd you get on the floor Mister Bear?" Then her eyes move to a table with a couple of baseball gloves on it and a baseball. "These gloves are bit big now, but the two of them will grow into them. And this ball, hmm… we'll have to take it with us the next time we got to Fenway Park and get it signed."
Her eyes move up from there to a small shelf with some blocks on it. She smiles and says, "We'll they'll either be great at spelling or great at smashing blocks together." Nora's eyes then drift over to another shelf just past a painting of a farm scene on the wall. There was a wooden toy race car her and Nate picked up at a Farmers' Market in Concord. "Hmm… to think someday both Shawn and Shaun will be learning to drive." Her eyes then glide their gaze over onto the top of the changing table where a book lay on the top surface. Its title was YOUR SPECIAL. She looked it over and then paged through it before shutting it again she mused, "I wonder what they'll grow into being?"
Next, she walked over to their crib and looked down at her babies. Both looked up at her and locked eyes with her cooing as they did. Little smiles lit up their faces as they recognized their mother. Reaching down, Nora tickled them a little as she also cooed at them. Then she wound up and turned on the mobile made up of small toy rocket ships and watched their faces track the motion of the tiny ships.
After she finished paying attention to the twins she went out to the hall and towards the great room that consisted of the living room, dining room and kitchen. Codsworth their Mister Handy domestic servant robot was floating to the left of the breakfast bar that dominated the center of the Great Room. "Good morning, Mum, I have your coffee ready. At 135.6 degrees Fahrenheit it is brewed to perfection!" He then pours her a cup and sets down a copy of the Boston Bugle newspaper near her cup. "Here's your copy of today's paper just delivered."
Laying on the bar next to and to the right of her coffee cup was a copy of Hubris Comics Grognak the Barbarian. It's subtitle was "And the Jungle of the Bat Babies." Nora looked at it as she thumbed through it she mused, "Grognak the Barbarian and the Jungle of the Bat Babies." Then she giggles a little before closing it. Nate walked in about that time and took a position to sand at the east end of the bar next to the liquor cabinet. She saw a pack of cigarettes laying on its surface and couple of the bottles of their selection of alcohol sitting next to a Highball glass. 'It's too early to get a drink, and I wonder who left those cigarettes there. We, either one don't smoke," she thought.